Grimwade was scheduled to direct a serial for Season 20 entitled The Return, which would later become Resurrection of the Daleks. When industrial action disrupted filming, the story was held over until the following year; the director assigned to it was Matthew Robinson.

Robophobia, an irrational fear of robots, was at one point referred to in-universe as Grimwade's Syndrome. (TV: The Robots of Death) This was an in-joke reference made after Grimwade — at that time a production assistant — had bemoaned the fact that the stories on which he was assigned to work almost always involved robots.